Page 80 of American Royals

Teddy blanched. “That’s all right, we can wait—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Adelaide assured him. “You’re in good hands. Samantha is the maid of honor, after all.”

“I’m not the maid of honor. I mean, Beatrice hasn’t asked me,” Sam muttered.

The queen exchanged a loaded glance with Teddy, as if seeking sympathy for Sam’s obstinacy. “She doesn’t need to ask. She’s your sister; it’s understood,” she said crisply. Before either of them could protest, she swept back out of the room, leaving the security guards at the door. “Go ahead; I’ll just be a minute!”

Samantha briefly considered making a run for it. But that was the cowardly thing to do, and the last thing Sam wanted was for Teddy to think he had rattled her. She squared her shoulders and started toward the final row of display cases, the ones that everyone really came here for—the jewelry. One of the security guards unlocked the glass cover before retreating with a nod.

Teddy came to stand next to her. He seemed oddly wary, as if he expected Sam to whirl on him with a barrage of insults any moment now, or maybe pummel him with her fists.

She just looked over the rings, ignoring him.

“I’m hopeless at this,” Teddy ventured, breaking the silence. “They all look beautiful. How am I supposed to choose?” He opened the display case to pull out one of the rings, an elegant platinum band circled with baguette-cut diamonds.

“My grandmother had that one made to celebrate her twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.” She wasn’t really sure why she told him that.

“In that case, maybe it has some good luck.” Teddy cast a quick glance at Sam, but she still refused to meet his gaze. Instead she moved sideways along the case, studying the various showstopping jewels nestled inside.

A few of them she slipped on her own finger: a massive thirteen-carat emerald, an oval diamond on a rose-gold band. They were all unquestionably beautiful, but to Sam, their appeal was so much more than the beauty.

They were living fragments of history. Each time she put one on, Sam felt the ghosts of her ancestors whispering to her across the fabric of centuries. The rings made her feel more confident, even majestic.

Not that she would ever be a Your Majesty.

Teddy cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask … are you just angry with me, or is something else going on?”

“Oh, so you’ve decided that now is a good time to start caring about my feelings?”

“Please, Sam. I’m trying here.”

Sam felt the anger seeping from her, just a little. After everything that had happened between them, she didn’t exactly want to get into this with Teddy. But she had no one else to talk to. And he was a good listener.

“Nina and I got into a fight. On top of everything else … it just feels like a lot.”

“You miss her.” It wasn’t a question.

“We used to talk constantly, and now all of a sudden we’ve gone radio silent. It feels like half my internal monologue has suddenly switched off.”

“Have you apologized?”

“What makes you think I’m the one who did something wrong?” Sam said automatically, then caught her breath at the wry expression on Teddy’s face. “I don’t know. The things we said to each other … I’m not sure we’ll be able to forgive and forget.”

“Who said anything about forgetting? The point of forgiveness is to recognize that someone has hurt you, and to still love them in spite of it.” The way Teddy said it, Sam knew he wasn’t just talking about Nina anymore.

He reached for one of the rings. It looked very small, centered there on his palm. He quickly put it back. “Which would you pick?”

Her eyes darted to a cushion-cut pink diamond surrounded by a halo of smaller diamonds.

Wordlessly, Teddy took the ring in his hand. He looked at her expectantly.

A hushed spell seemed to have fallen over them. Samantha’s breath caught as she placed her hand in his. Slowly, neither of them daring to speak, he slid the ring onto her finger. It fit perfectly.

Their faces were suddenly very close. Sam’s heartbeat echoed in her ears. She knew what Teddy’s old-fashioned gesture meant. He was silently willing her to understand that even though their love could never be, because of reasons much more powerful than either of them, he would always care about her.

She swallowed and forced herself to step back. “You aren’t picking for me, though. And this ring doesn’t feel like Beatrice.”

Teddy let go of her hand with visible reluctance. Sam hated herself for how lonely her palm felt without him touching it.